American Airlines Wins a Futile Victory Over Delta ?

[mistified]

On the surface no slam dunk by any means. I'm thinking there is something more to this? Or not!
 
(please no long winded lectures WT or you will just be tuned out) KEEP IT BRIEF!
 
 
http://www.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/062415/american-airlines-wins-futile-victory-over-delta-aal-dal.aspx?partner=YahooSA

 

[FWAAA]

It's just more intellectually weak nonsense from well-known Adam Levine-Weinberg, who owns stock in HA and UA (noted at the end of his click-bait Investopedia article) and call options on most other airlines, including AA. He's apparently very bullish on airline stocks. Levine-Weinberg's written pieces are usually several levels of analysis below the level of most writers here.

 

[mistified]

It's just more intellectually weak nonsense from well-known Adam Levine-Weinberg, who owns stock in HA and UA (noted at the end of his click-bait Investopedia article) and call options on most other airlines, including AA. He's apparently very bullish on airline stocks. Levine-Weinberg's written pieces are usually several levels of analysis below the level of most writers here.

 
Use of the 787 ( along with the cargo metrics) may change the economics of this flight.
I guess we will see!

 

[nycbusdriver]

The solution is easy....get the pilots to give relief on those RJ seat numbers, and Parker/Kirby can fill that 787 with their 5-seats-at-a-time philosophy.  (God forbid they just use A319s or even some E190s.)

 

[FWAAA]

Use of the 787 ( along with the cargo metrics) may change the economics of this flight.
I guess we will see!

That's an interesting angle; AA went on and on and on in its filings with the DOT about how it would fly the route with a 777 compared to DL's puny 767 and NH's low-density 777, so I'm guessing that AA starts this route with a 777 to avoid giving DL and others ammo in future route cases ("AA breaks its promises just like it accuses DL"). Maybe AA does assign a 787 to the HND route early on, or maybe it keeps its word for a year or two.

 

[WorldTraveler]

As we have been reminded, nothing competitively comes easily
There is a lot of capacity to Tokyo including from LAX
So far, AA hasn't even acknowledged that it will fly the route and release schedules. They may be consulting with JL if they are willing to eat the losses or if JL will make changes to its network

 

[commavia]

"Futile?"  Hardly.  Risky?  Probably.  Challenging?  Certainly.  But futile?  Please.
 
At least LAX-HND actually has a shot - with a 787, replacing the NRT 777 and complimenting JAL's 77W to NRT, I don't think it's exactly "futile."  It's not a coincidence that California has gone from having 0% of U.S. carriers' HND frequency allocations to 75% of them.

 

[lpbrian]

AA will use a 787 on the route. This was announced.

 

[IORFA]

The video I saw said they were trying to see if they could get a 787 to LAX. Nothing set in stone yet.

 

[WorldTraveler]

so when is AA going to acknowledge that they are going to operate the route, or are they?

or are they waiting for enough business class seats in order to convert their Asia network to 787s?

 

[eolesen]

That's an interesting angle; AA went on and on and on in its filings with the DOT about how it would fly the route with a 777 compared to DL's puny 767 and NH's low-density 777, so I'm guessing that AA starts this route with a 777 to avoid giving DL and others ammo in future route cases ("AA breaks its promises just like it accuses DL"). Maybe AA does assign a 787 to the HND route early on, or maybe it keeps its word for a year or two.

A few thoughts on that...

1) DOT's initial award was announced on March 27th. AA didn't commence 787 operations until May 15th. Had AA proposed operating a route with an aircraft that wasn't approved for operations, someone would have singled that out for objecting to their suitability to win the award

2) I can't think of any proceeding in the past 20 years where seating density was the primary determining factor as much as a tie breaker. What is a factor is speed: the 767 has a slower crusing speed, and that means 15-45 minutes longer flying time than a 777 on WestCoast-NRT. The 787 is faster than the 777, so that works out to be a positive, particularly where the departure times are already seen as a commercial disadvantage.

 

[FrugalFlyerv2.0]

That's an interesting angle; AA went on and on and on in its filings with the DOT about how it would fly the route with a 777 compared to DL's puny 767 and NH's low-density 777, so I'm guessing that AA starts this route with a 777 to avoid giving DL and others ammo in future route cases ("AA breaks its promises just like it accuses DL"). Maybe AA does assign a 787 to the HND route early on, or maybe it keeps its word for a year or two.

 
It'll be interesting to see how long 777 service lasts for AA and whether they'll switch to a 787.
I believe UA uses a 777 on SFO-HND, so perhaps AA can survive using a 777 on LAX-HND (maybe the JV with JAL will help keep the 777 on the route).

 

[WorldTraveler]

UA is far stronger to Japan than AA is.

The 787s can't come fast enough for AA to replace 777s which is fine in improving the operating economics of AA's Asian routes.

It simply means that AA will have lots of 777s on its hands that it must place somewhere or park.

and the 787 vs 777 speed difference is virtually meaningless in real life scheduling and speed, unlike aircraft size, isn't even mentioned in route applications.

the 787 is a good airplane and will allow AA to give LAX-HND a chance going into the winter - but they are likely talking to JL about how to restructure their combined network including a likely drop of AA's LAX-NRT route.

And, also, DL is not giving up its SEA-HND authority until Oct 1 so either AA will have to start it right away (with only a 90 day booking window +/-) or they will be allowing a gap in service which they told DL was unacceptable.

 

[AirLUVer]

Given that they were intending to use the same flight number for the HND flight that they were using for the NRT flight, AA will treat this as a schedule change for existing bookings.

 

[WorldTraveler]

and that will create some mighty long sits for connecting passengers in LAX and will ruin the connections in Tokyo
It's more likely that AA will protect its LAX-NRT passengers on JL's flights which arrive at the airport the passengers were ticketed to in a timeframe close to what they expected...if they don't, it pretty well shoots the whole idea of a JV.